Monday, April 13, 2009

I woke up Saturday morning feeling fantastic. Of course, when you enjoy a nice cocktail of Demerol and Versed (because of the EGD), you tend to sleep well. The wife and I drove around and visited a few of the sparse garage sales. Nothing to write home about. I think I picked up a copy of "The Last Action Hero" on DVD for $1. No, it's not The Greatest Movie Of All Time but it's kinda fun and for a buck, how can you lose? Oh, and we picked up a small TV for $3 to mount by the treadmill.

After scarfing down a breakfast from Carl's Jr., the wife drove down to Oklahoma City to borrow a larger vehicle from her mother. She's been keeping an eye out for a new, more appropriate, breakfast nook table (we don't have a dining room) and there was one on sale a K-Mart... but it wasn't going to fit in the trunk of a Honda Accord (1998 or 2004). I had other plans.

After she left I set out in search of coaxial connectors (the kind on the end of the cable/satellite TV cable). I knew where the wire in the attic was that leads to the bedroom with the treadmill and we already had a line that runs from behind the TV in the living room that had previously fed the front bedroom that I used to use as my office (I'm now in the back bedroom). We had asked the builder to run an additional line for the front bedroom and he simply clipped the main line, put in a splitter and ran the signal to both the South wall of the living room and the front bedroom from the same main feed. There was enough slack in the cable I had run from behind the TV in the living room that I considered pushing the line down through the wall and swapping out the main feed but the treadmill room is far enough toward the front of the house that I didn't want to work in such a cramped space kneeling on support beams. (go ahead. Read it again. I did most of that wiring work and even I had to read it a couple of times - I'll wait). I decided to splice the cable.

I ran to Wal-Mart but all they had were the screw-on connectors. Can you say 'crappy'? In the end I bought a couple of crimp-on connectors for $2 and paid $11 for a crimping tool at Radio shack. Turns out, the existing line is all-weather coaxial cable that is double shielded, double insulated and slightly thicker than the average cable most homeowners work with. Translation: The connector was too small. I got it on well enough that you can see a picture but it's kinda snowy. I need to find a proper connector and re-do the splice. But I had more plans and didn't really feel like rushing back out to RS. So, I put away my tools and closed up the attic ladder.

I then proceeded to the shed and rolled out the lawn mower. I was a little concerned because a) there was still gas in the gas can (that I'm pretty sure I didn't treat with Sta-Bil) and b) There was still gas in the mower. D'OH! I put it away 'wet' at the end of last season. (In case you're wondering, that's bad. Gasoline does break down over time and can damage an engine). I needn't have worried too much, she started on the second pull. Not surprising since I bought her brand new about 4 weeks before the end of last season (my $7 garage sale special had finally started pushing up the daisies instead of chopping them down).

The front yard wasn't too bad. It was just starting to look a little shaggy. It appeared to be mostly grass, too. I think it's bermuda grass because we're really the only yard on the street that was ready to be mowed (because of grass, at least). The back yard was my main concern. It has needed a 'shave' for the past month. Some of that stuff was downright thick! And, despite running the mower in mulch mode, she only stalled out once.

I chilled out until the wife got home and we loaded up and headed for Tulsa. We might have waited but the dining room furniture was all on sale at K-Mart and the sale ended Saturday. While we were in KC last weekend, we had seen a solid, round table we liked that came with four chairs so we were off to make our purchase. But we didn't buy that table.

When we got there, we found a simpler, rectangular table that had not been on display in KC. It was considerably cheaper, but didn't include any chairs. They had some padded parsons chairs displayed with it that I preferred over the hard wood ones on the other table so we snagged a couple of those while we were at it.

Now it was dinner time. I wasn't being too particular but the wife suggested Olive Garden. I enjoyed a couple of plates of salad (we practically emptied the bowl) with generous amounts of Parmesan cheese grated on top and about half a serving of eggplant Parmesan (also with generous amounts of freshly grated Parmesan cheese in addition to the Parmesan cheese already melted on top of it). We saved some room and elected to have dessert. I had a new Chocolate Ciottoli Cake (Dark chocolate cobblestone cake chunks layered with chocolate mousse and a soft brownie topped with hazelnuts). It was so rich and sweet... up to a point.

About half way through dessert, the intestinal distress kicked in. I had to visit the restroom twice before we left the restaurant. Then, I had to make two stops on the way home. I took something to staunch the flow as it were and things started to settle down a bit. By the time we got home, I had to take another dose and that may have been what actually did me in.

I no longer had any urgency but my tummy was still a bit upset. Basically, it felt like an old fashioned belly ache but it wasn't too bad... at the time. We finally got to bed about 11:30. I couldn't find a comfortable spot and my stomach wasn't settling at all. I finally just got up and went out to the living room where things only got worse. By this time it was about 1:30 or 2:00 am and I was hurting. I was doubled over and on a scale of 1 to 10 I rated the pain at an eight... that's pretty bad.

We discussed the situation some and decided that, perhaps, with my family's penchant for lactose intollerance, I shouldn't have had so much cheese. So, at 2:30 am on Easter Sunday my wife, God bless her, went to Wal-Mart to pick up some Lactaid (as well as a couple of other easy-on-the-tummy food items).

She hadn't been gone five minutes and I just couldn't stand it anymore. I hurt and I was concerned that, maybe, this was some sort of complication from the EGD procedure. I didn't want Lactaid, I wanted to go to the ER. I picked up the phone, dialed her cell number, and heard The Magnificent Seven theme from across the room... she hadn't taken her phone with her.

I did the only thing I could do. I kicked back in my recliner and sat perfectly still. This accomplished two things. First, it gave the cat a nice, warm, stable place to curl up and nap (and get loved on a little bit). Second, it settled my stomach enough that it had become somewhat tollerable (probably down to a 6). By the time the wife got home, thoughts of the ER had left the building - but I was still a little concerned.

I took a dose of the Lactaid and sat still (and loved on the cat) some more. Within a few minutes, the pain was down to a 3. Still worried about a post-procedure complication, I called the hospital operator and asked to have the doctor who had done the EGD paged so I could report my issues. She ended up calling my primary care physician. After describing what had transpired over the past several hours, he surmised that it was most likely something I ate. With things mostly settled down, I went to bed and finally got some sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, there was still some lingering discomfort. We visited the walk-in clinic and, after some blood tests, the doctor there agreed with my doctor's diagnosis that it was most likely something I ate. My mind was at ease that it wasn't a post-procedure complication and life went on. By the end of the day on Sunday, my tummy had settled enough and life returned to normal... but I didn't get a damn thing done on Sunday.